Shed the cloak of secrecy on rape

“Why would anyone give an assignment of this sort to such a young girl even new to a city?” he said, prodding for more. “I’m sure the couple went there to make out. A lot of couples look for isolated places like these. Why else would they go there at five in the evening?” he added. “She should have had the sense. She asked for it,” he said. In a clean sweep, the man shifted the onus of the photojournalist’s gang-rape at the isolated Mahalaxmi Mill onto the victim herself. “They must be doing it when the guys saw them, got turned on and raped her,” he concluded. “You could be knowing her too, being in the same industry. Who is she?”

I was disgusted with the man. This, I realised, validates the law that prevents a rape victim’s identity being disclosed. I don’t know the Mumbai mill victim or the Delhi physiotherapist personally…but I do know scores of women who’ve been raped at home, by family friends, uncles even today by their husbands demanding sex as a right. Marital rape is the one reality like familial rape that never ever gets reported. Each time, a man speaks like this, I feel really sorry for his own daughter who could never ever confide in him should she ever be molested or raped. And, in that lay the failure of our society not in our legal system.

Sadly, this is the general line of conversation that takes place across the world, even amidst fine-sounding talk of the ‘brave-heart’s courage and spunk’ splashed all over the media. And that is exactly the reason for the low reportage of rapes and molestations. If a rape victim is not inclined to be believed, there’s lesser cause to report. Worse still is if she feels she’ll be blamed for it. Why on earth would she report a rape?

It isn’t important why the photojournalist went to the site. What is, is that she was hoodwinked, assaulted brutally, raped by a gang of regular offenders who felt they were safe in having videotaped her in the nude after blackmailing her into what they felt was a silent submission. There were a series of serious acts of crime all of which needed to be detected, examined in a court of law and resolved through due process.

After the Delhi gang-rape, came the uproar over the law and its enforcers. The Criminal Amendment Act (2013) followed the Verma Commission but the rapes didn’t stop. Sadly, the publicly-reported rapes don’t quite give a whiff of an indication of the horror of rapes that occur day in and day out “within homes”. These aren’t even reported and it isn’t because of ‘police apathy’, ‘ineffective laws’ or ‘sexy movies’ – it’s entirely because of a personal choice.

Given a situation where the victim is, nine times out of ten, raped by a family member, filing a case or seeking justice is accompanied with personal shaming, and at home, within family and friends. Even if she does talk of it, she is forced to keep mum for the sake of her ‘family’s izzat or for collective peace. Expecting her to come out in the open and expose, say a rapist father or brother or uncle as is often the case, is wishful thinking. Contrary to popular belief, she would have no choice but to live with it.

A law cannot stop rapes. That the crime is one least reported is a trigger for most potential rapists who feel they can get away with it. The Mahalaxmi Mills rapists even did, for a while. To stop this, we need to change our mindsets, our attitudes towards women. If it isn’t bad enough to endure rape, it’s worse to be unable to report it and have to live with it all bottled up inside, just because, if you did so, your parents – at home – and the world – at large – will blame you for it.

On Teacher’s Day, it makes sense for the parents of the world – our first teachers – to look within and mend their ways. You need to stop the sermons, the generalisations. Stop to talk to your child and get her to confide in you. You must be her best friend. And, when that happens, she’ll tell you all about herself. About that uncle who molested her, about that friend who turned out to be a desperate ‘jerk’ at work, about the shop-keeper who insists on touching her each time she goes to shop.

If every girl confided in her parent right at the onset, since she was a child, no rapist could think he could get away with it. And that would deter him from committing the crime. Life sentences, castrations even threat of death don’t work if the rapist is certain that the victim just won’t report the act. It’s the cloak of secrecy and issues of a family izzat (honour) at stake that places the onus of rape on the victim. Shed it!

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Gajanan Khergamker is an independent editor and legal counsel with over three decades of experience. He heads DraftCraft – an India-based media-legal think tank that fetches news about the most ignored, under-reported segments of society and reach legal aid to the most deprived through positive activism and intervention. His areas of interest include public affairs, inclusion, conflict of interest, law and policy, foreign affairs, diversity and specific issues regarding the disabled, LBGT, women and animals. Website: www.draftcraft.in / Twitter handle: @viewsonthefly

Gajanan Khergamker is an independent editor and legal counsel with over three decades of experience. He heads DraftCraft – an India-based media-legal thin. . .